Jordan!

First off I may or may not have broken Blakes computer... now I say may or may not because I never dropped it, got it wet, or done all of those things that usually break a computer it just wont turn on so I dont have a computer anymore so blog post may be more delayed then they usually are! But hopefully I wont get too annoying asking other's to use their computers!

On a happier note I just got back from Jordan which was amazing! We had such a good time I fall in love with each place we go!

Jordan trumped Turkey in these ways...
1) the food- The food in Jordan was amazing so much better then Turkey which seemed a little backwards to me
2) Petra- Need I say more?
3) Not as many long bus rides!

Petra-

Picture this.. Watching Indiana Jones the week before going to Petra.. the whole room is cheering after the movie ends and the anxiety for it is building up! Then as you get there you are getting more and more excited... as you walk down the Siq it looks a lot like the Grand Canyon or Zions. It is absolutely beautiful! The tour guide is telling us all this cool yet not relevant information and I am going crazy just wanting to see the Treasury (and secretly wishing Harrison Ford will be there waiting for me). I cant even tell you how excited I was and it probably felt like the longest walk of my life getting there.. But it was well worth it! All of the sudden we turn a corner and you see this.....

(A picture will come soon enough I promise! ha)

Pretty amazing right? It was such a cool place and I got to ride my camel! After seeing the treasury together they let us break off and have some free time. So a couple of us decided to go to the Monastery, we heard that it was just a walk up to it. So as we are walking we soon realize that this may have been more then we bargained for. ha! It soon turned into an hour and a half up hill hike with Shannon and Aubrey having to stop at every necklace vendor possible. haha It might not sound too bad but when there is at least 10 up and they all have the same necklaces... yeah for a non shopper this is difficult! hah But it was well worth it because at the top the monastery was one of the most beautiful buildings and huge!! I dont understand how they built it but im sure glad they did. Dont worry on the way down we again had to stop at all the vendors!

Jordan River-

The last day in Jordan we stopped at the Jordan river and went to a site of Jesus's Baptism It was beautiful.. the water was all murky and  not quite what I expected but the experience was amazing.  Its interesting because we were sitting in Jordan (of course) and the only thing that was separating us from Israel was the river, they told us not to talk to the people on the other side. We were able to have a devotional and our Professor gave a sweet testimony then he asked a couple people to bare their testimony on their baptism, and then we sang the primary baptismal song. It was really nice to go and touch the water and think about the covenants I've made with my Father in Heaven and thank Christ for his perfect example. It was a perfect way to end our Jordan trip!!

Marissa is Awesome!!

My cute primary girl put the title up as you can see! 

Real title: Tel Aviv! 

        First off... Im going to back track just a little. A group of ten of us went to Tel Aviv last Thursday (13th) It was so much fun and really nice and relaxing. We went at about 9 am and didnt get back till 10 pm so it was a long day out but it was perfect. We walked around Jaffa and then went and played some beach volleyball, football and swam in the Mediterranean Sea, how awesome is that?
             

Shout out to the BEST MOM EVER!!!!
  Cute mom sent me a Halloween package which had to be the best thing ever!  Thank you so much mom! You have no idea how nice it is to have American treats and to have mail.  It is so nice to get a little taste of home!

 Me opening my package and SO excited!

 Liz and I blowing up the cute decorations preparing to decorate

The final product...cutest door Ever!

City Of David

Sorry I am kind of slacking on the blog these last two weeks but it is getting harder to find time here. 

Quick update on the pictures... We went to the City of David yesterday and went through Hezekiah's tunnel. It had to be one of my favorite field trips! The tunnel is 1760 ft. long about a 45 min walk in the tunnel and about ankle to mid caff  deep of water. It was awesome!We were able to use our headlamps for real finally it was great.  After the tunnel we went to these really cool tombs and explore them a little bit. So over all it was a great day! 

Conference

  Today we had a quick sacrament meeting and then watched the Saturday afternoon session of Conference. I absolutely love conference! I have to admit it made me A LOT homesick thinking that usually on conference we are at the cabin with the family playing games, and just enjoying being with each other. But if I had to pick an alternative place to be Jerusalem's not a bad choice!
  I think one of my favorite talks this session was Carl B Cooks, he talked about how its better to look up.  A lot of things happen in this life (like Curt says life isn't the reward, its the trial...) and there are two ways we can look up or down. And I choose up. He talks about how much joy can come from looking up and giving our burdens to our Savior.  It was such a beautiful message and something that I can definitely work on in life.



Yom Kippur

   Today is the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement and is the holiest days of the year for them.  So after conference a group of us decided to go observe this holiday day....and what better way then going to the Western Wall and then to a Jewish synagogue. I love how the Jewish people worship there is absolutely no shame and are usually very humble and open about it.  There were many people humbly praying and it was so peaceful.  The men in our group were able to go right into the synagogue and worship with them while the girls when to an observation balcony. It was a once in a life time experience that I am very grateful I was able to see!

Last week!

The big things this week were: sleeping through dinner on fast Sabbath, Conference, field trip, midterms, and an organ concert! 

Sleeping through Dinner

  You know that feeling of being woken up in a complete panic, realizing that you slept through dinner on fast Sabbath.. Well that was the feeling I had!.. Let me just tell you its probably one of the worst feelings ever. Liz and I decided to take a nap on Saturday, because when you can’t eat I guess you sleep... Neither of us thought to set our alarms thinking we would never sleep 3 hours. But we did! Liz woke up in a complete panic yelling its 4:50 we missed dinner and instantly my heart dropped we changed into Sabbath close and ran up to find that dinner was all eaten, gone, put away. I literally almost started to cry I was so hungry! Luckily they found some fruit for us so we had a couple pieces of bread and some apples... Later that night, after we watched the first session of Conference, it seemed to be a huge story told here in the JC so one of the girls asked me about it and I told her the story.  My cute professor was behind me and heard that I hadn’t eaten and was starving so him and his wife kidnapped me and invited me over for dinner.  It was so yummy!! I had been craving a good home cooked meal for a long time.  I told them I was totally fine with coming and visiting anytime they wanted!

The field trip was to the Negev Desert-

  The Negev Desert is basically everything you think it will be really hot, dusty, and there's not a whole lot to look at.. While there went to a Bedouin town and visit a non profit organization run but this cute old lady that has really change the lives for the Bedouin women there.  She opened up this place where women can come and get an education and told us that she was the first lady there to get a driver's license! 

   

Midterms

  Quick sentence on midterms…. They were ridiculously hard but they are over now thank goodness!

Organ Concert

   A group of us got special permission to go out into the Old city after dark.. For those of you who don’t know we have strict rules here about when we can and can’t be out.  So it was a pretty big deal that they let us go.  It was at St. Savior’s Church, which is such a beautiful church. The man was a local from Jerusalem he played 5 really beautiful pieces.  

Arabian Night -- "Like Arabian days, More often than not Are hotter than hot In a lot of good ways"

This week consisted of trying to catch up on sleep from Turkey, studying for midterms, and going out in the city for a couple of hours just to get out.  Last night however we were able to have a little break from studying and live it up.  We had Arabian night (instantly thought of Aladdin) it was a lot of fun, got all dressed up in our Arabian get up. We had a couple of guys come and say the call to prayer live, which gave me more of an appreciation for what i wake up to at 4am. ha Then they made us some authentic food. I might not have been a huge fan of the food but it was fun to try it! At dinner I sat by cute sister Ludlow who I absolutely love she reminds me so much of Aunt Jackie, I teach her two girls in primary, and it makes me feel a little closer to home. After dinner we went in and had a little dance party they taught us a traditional dance and we all looked silly trying to follow their lead but it was great! Just what the doctor ordered!

Pictures to come.

P.S. This is probably mainly for my mom but my professor has a blog and he can upload a ton of pictures and videos of all of us and what we are doing. He also is better at all the details and info so if you want to check it out feel free!
http://huntsmansintheholyland.blogspot.com/  

Turkey Baby!

So....Turkey officially feels like forever ago. But because of midterm studying im a bit late, sorry! Here are some reasons why Turkey is one of my new favorite places. 

1.Paprika Pringles- that's right $4 pringles but i don't regret it one bit! 

2.Beyaz Magnum bars

3. Beautiful sights

4. Bon Fire on the Beach

5. Trying new foods-They brought us out a fish bones and all, it wasn't too bad either. 

We went all over Turkey literally-we started in Istanbul, traveled to Troy, Assos, Pergamon, Ephesus, Melatis, Heirapolis, Iznik, Bursa, and then back to Istanbul. We had bomb.com hotels they really treated us well some were 5 star hotels and then the others were 3/4 stars.  Not too shabby!

Here were a couple of my favorite stops in Turkey...

Istanbul: 

I loved the city of Istanbul, it was beautiful.  We went on a really pretty boat ride to look at all the land to see both the Europe side and Asia side of Turkey.  It was such a fun city with so many beautiful buildings like the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and a great place to buy baklava!

Assos-

This is one of the cities Paul visited on his missionary journey.  It is such a cute little place... we had to walk up this steep cobblestone pathway with these people selling their handmade trinkets. When we got to the top it was so beautiful it had a nice a breezy, with a great outlook of the Aegean sea, and beautiful ruins. It was one of my favorite places! 

Pergamon-

Pergamon was an experience I will never forget.. While we are on the top of Pergamon a sudden downpour of rain happened and in about 5 seconds we were all drenched head to foot. But that didnt stop us (even if the doctor wanted it too) we still went to all the different ruins and alters that were built upon Pergamon, which were amazing.  It probably wouldnt have been such a big deal if we didnt have about a 3-6 hour buss ride of us and we were all soaking wet! After we came down from the mount we had to make a stop and get out all of our luggage and change.  At the gas station we changed at I had a guy ask me if I wanted to have a ride in his new car, no worries mom I said no (this happens a lot to all of the girls)! 

Lovin the Sabbath!

    The longer I'm here the more I realize how much my Savior knows me personally!   I joked with Mom about how awesome it would be if  I got a call in the Primary here and guess what.... Shannon and I are Primary team teachers to the valiant girls.  I am so excited about this calling! I love children it makes complete since to me of why our Savior teaches us to be like them.  They instantly light up your day, they are wiling to except you for who you are, they love you the minute you walk in, and are so forgiving and can look past all your short comings! This calling is hard though because it makes me miss all my cute nieces and nephews! I miss all the fam but those kids constantly made my day!

      Quick update-After Church I was able to go to Gethsemane for the first time and it was amazing.The spirit there was so strong we read some of Luke and sang a couple of hymn (of course). It is such a beautiful experience to sit and think of what our Savior did for us. At the place, or around the place, of where he suffered for us.  I thought of how much someone would have to love you to do something like that for you...and that love is amazing and incomprehensible!  I am so grateful for him and his love.  I have always felt inadequate of having his love but the more I learn here the more I realize that all of us are able to receive it and that's what makes it so beautiful!

Here are some pictures...

   Me and Shan view form the top of the Austrian Hospice


Shan, Tyler, and me outside the garden tomb.

 I know it was quick but I have to go pack...tomorrow I'm off to Turkey! "Spring Break" here we come! ha